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Triumph puts 250s on hold

Last fall, Triumph announced plans to release a small-displacement bike for the world market for the 2015 model year, and showed some sportbike-looking drawings. Now, Visordown is reporting that Triumph has confirmed that those plans are on hold.

The original news, released at Triumph's EICMA presentation, claimed the bike would be a 250cc single-cylinder machine that would be manufactured at the company's new plant in India. The news came as no surprise, with both Honda and Kawasaki showing great success with their 250cc-300cc offerings and with KTM announcing the RC390.

Spy shots last fall showed a Street Triple-styled, entry-level motorcycle, which we journo-folk assumed was built using the same engine. Then, this March, spy shots emerged of the "Daytona 250" in testing.

Visordown is now citing Triumph Director of Sales and Marketing Paul Stroud as saying that Triumph has "placed the 250cc bike project on hold for strategic reasons relating to its specfic segment."

One can only imagine that, with the update to Honda's CBR to bring it up to 300cc and KTM's release of the RC390, Triumph is concerned that a 250cc single may not be competitive. Hopefully, this setback won't put Triumph too far behind in releasing what is sure to be an incredibly attractive option.